BATON ROUGE - A pilot and a flight instructor were unharmed after a small plane crashed outside the Baton Rouge Metro airport during a practice flight late Thursday morning.

The crash was reported shortly before 9 a.m. along Plank Road just off the airport property. Partway into its flight, the plane reportedly encountered engine troubles and started to go down. 

Flight data showed the plane had taken off from the airport roughly 10 minutes before it was forced to crash-land in a canal. Officials said the aircraft also struck a tree on its way down.

Neither person inside the plane was seriously hurt. 

An investigation into the crash is ongoing.